


Machine: Ascend [S]

by Cheyenwood



Category: Homestuck
Genre: A lot happened before this fic even started you have no idea, Characters with pairing slashes don't die, I have a lot of plans but also I have no idea what I'm doing, Lots of little roles because I can't help myself, Multi, The explicit tag will eventually turn on and probably before the end of the act
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-22 01:10:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10686684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheyenwood/pseuds/Cheyenwood
Summary: What if Person of Interest happened, but all of the main characters were Homestuck characters? Dirk Strider, a mysterious computer programmer, sets out to save humans from themselves one by one under an extremely good assumed name. He's aided by Jake English, an ex-CIA operative assumed dead who wants to make up for the sins of his past. Together they fight crime. And there are like one literal thousand other people that either need saving or are trying to kill them.





	Machine: Ascend [S]

**Early March 2016**

 

AR: Wow, look at you go.

AR: It seems that having a government agent on the case makes breaking into apartments a simple job after all. I know the chances were high that you’d be this (1/2)

AR: good, but I will admit that even my radically advanced lock picking prognostic algorithms weren’t up to the task. (2/2)

AR: You’ve clearly done this before.

AR: Maybe I should jack the cameras, and set them to a loop so that Ms. Pyrope doesn’t get the wrong first impression of you?

AR: Oh yes. If we were in one of your favorite movies this would be the scene where, in a very gnarly hacker voice I’d say, “I’m in.”

AR: I’m so in right now, Mr. English. I’m so deep inside these cameras that the crew is worried that they won’t be able to get me out in time. They’re sitting (1/3)

AR: inside the command center, watching the totally accurate feet counter slowly tick upward. One of them smokes a cigarette because they can get away with it in (2/3)

AR: this PG-13 movie, and uses up the script’s one swear word. “ _Shit_ that boy’s gone deep,” he says. Then the line snaps, and I go even deeper. (3/3)

 

“Alright, Walker, it’s been some time since I worked with an overwatch, but I feel like I know enough about the job to critique your performance. For instance, maybe you shouldn’t blow up my phone with texts while I’m wearing your gosh darned earpiece.”

“What?”

“My pants have been vibrating like a mad bull for the past minute, and you’re the one who gave me this phone. You can just talk to me.”

“Oh. That’s just the Auto-Recorder app. You can ignore him.”

 

AR: Or you could ignore my flesh-and-maybe just a hint of blood counterpart, and focus on the virtual man with the actual plan.

AR: We’ve got this.

AR: ‘Gosh’ you’re pretty. Wave to the camera, Mr. English.

AR: Ah, yes, you’re taking me out of your pocket, now we can talk about what you should do next.

 

“It doesn’t look like an app, it looks like a bunch of texts.”

“He uses texts to communicate.”

“Are you a _deranged_ billionaire? You keep using a person’s pronoun when talking about it. I feel like you haven’t told me everything about this ‘saving people’ job.”

 

AR: Very observant, Mr. English. My name is actually Bruce Wayne, but at night I like to put on a bat costume to disguise myself while I fight crime.

AR: I hired you to be my sidekick, my super secret Samoan silver fox Robin.

 

“Are you even listening to yourself right now?” Jake asks.

“Ugh, let me check the logs,” Dirk ‘Walker’ says. “Fuck. I could say he’s not usually this bad, but I’m not sure even my poker face is that good.”

“And why is ‘he’ on my phone again?”

“To hack into phones. And cameras, apparently.”

“I hate to be the bloke who brings conversations back around, but I’m sure that’s in the overwatch job description too.”

“I’m not a traditional overwatch. Also, the webcam wasn’t even on when you came into the room. Also, Ms. Pyrope is legally blind so security camera footage of you would be useless to her even if you weren’t in her apartment to help save her.”

“Haha, that’s a lot of convenient excuses. You’re sure that someone wants to give her the quick and dirty?”

“I’m one hundred percent sure that she’s either the victim or the target, English.”

“You make it sound like that’s not some fucked up gobbledygook, Walker. Those are two very different things.”

“I’m aware. I’m also right.”

“Yes, of course, you trust this ‘source’ despite their provision of such a wide array of possibilities.”

“There’s only two possibilities, and I laid them out clearly.”

 

AR: If I may interject for a moment with my, admittedly superior in every way, AI opinion of the matter, there’s a 99.87% chance that lil’ ***’s data is accurate.

 

At that moment a power surge pushes through the servers that host Auto-Recorder’s dedicated consciousness. The power regulator catches most of it in time, but circuits log their complaint nonetheless.

 

AR: 100% chance. Forget the little bit of doubt.

 

It takes more processing power than AR would like to admit to make sense of what’s going on in the room while Jake moves through it. Accessing the fleshier parts of his programming is expensive, but those are also the bits that make him so useful. The webcam’s auto focus is doing some piss poor work too. He takes control of its functionality like a boss. He zooms that shit right in on the important parts.

Jake’s ass shifts back and forth in such a great rhythm. He makes his way over to the pile of case files, opens the first one, and puts his fingers on the page. AR would love if Jake talked about what he’s apparently fully qualified to read, but no such luck.

“Oh yes,” Jake says. AR’s not sure whether an actual eternity passed, or if it just felt like it. “It’s definitely this one, I think. An absolute rapscallion.”

“You’ve found the perp?”

“It must be this multiple offender who has utterly refused to pay sixteen jaywalking tickets. He sounds like a real redhot.”

“You can keep sounding literally one hundred years old, or you can help build our list of suspects.”

“You hired a multitasker, Mr. Walker.”

As Jake scans through folders AR tries to scan ones of his own. This involves breaking into Assistant District Attorney Terezi Pyrope’s desktop. He’s been running a background brute force cracking algo on it, but the background web crawlers have fed him enough data on his target that he can bring out the big guns. Goodbye dumb software cracker, hello super genius AI white dude.

 

AR: I mean “cracker”.

 

The %12.016 chance that Jake would pull the phone out of his pants turns out to be the accurate version of reality. “What is he going on about?”

“Ignore him if he’s not making sense.”

What brute force couldn’t break in 10,821 attempts AR destroys in 413. He then uses the recently visited folders to figure out what’s important. After some email scanning, chat log reading, and a cursory examination of her video games, he’s pretty sure that she’s not the perpetrator. Next up, the deep scan. This is where he lets the computer bits of himself do their work. So much procedural data-sifting is what they’re good at. If they see something interesting they’ll raise a red flag. Meanwhile, he can go back to —

What’s this?

There’s a peripheral connected to the computer that he doesn’t recognize, and prodding it gives him an ‘ACCESS DENIED’ warning. At first he comforts himself with the fact that it can’t last. He’s never encountered a piece of hardware that he couldn’t crack from inside the protection of the host computer. Of course, he’d feel really pissed if it turned out to be a dysfunctional printer.

 

AR: In all seriousness, I could really use some help at the computer.

AR: There’s something fishy going on, and I actually need some meat-world help to get to the bottom of this dirty aquarium.

AR: Your tight as fuck behind is needed over at the bit rave.

AR: You’re cordially invited to the rad pizza party going on over here that’s got all of zero pizzas, and all of one really interesting problems to solve.

 

“What’s that buzzing sound in the background?” Dirk asks.

“That’s the phone you gave me stuck in derriere massage mode.”

Goddamn it. He’s not going to pick up. AR flips over to messaging his maker.

 

AR: I’ve got an important mission for our boy here.

Dirk: Our boy.

AR: We’ve always been possessive of the ones we bring into this.

Dirk: There is no we. I hired him. You’re supposed to be helping him succeed in this. That’s the only good reason you’re still connected to the outside.

Dirk: It’s not my fault he doesn’t want to listen to anything you say right now.

AR: Isn’t it, Dirk? Isn’t it?

Dirk: I know you’re perfectly capable of determining what’s going to keep him from listening to you. Well, congrats I guess, you managed to push every fucking button.

AR: Okay, but who’s going to figure out what kind of fucked up biznasty is connected to Terezi’s computer?

Dirk: You can’t do that yourself?

AR: Like I said, an important mission.

 

He senses Dirk jacking into the back paths of the computer, those awkward meatspace motions so unbearably slow. All he has to do is wait for his other self to figure out what he’s already confirmed. Time is homophobic, making him wait like this.

“Hey, English, there’s something weird connected to her computer. Might be a hardwired keylogger?”

“You’re gosh darned lucky I’ve been in the business long enough to know what those are.” Jake howdies his partner over to the computer, picks up the gadget, and holds it up to the webcam. “Blood sugar monitor. Are you thinking the perp’s her doctor?”

AR wakes up the screen, opens up wordpad.exe, and shoves “SHE’S NOT DIABETIC” up in 72pt Times New Roman.

“Geez Louise, you don’t have to take my head off.”

Actually, he didn’t mean to sound like that, he just wanted to be noticed. Fuck. Whatever, at least now he can bother CIA boy directly without waiting for Home Office’s ass. He shifts to a more reasonable 32pt Lucida Console. “Poke yourself, Jake.”

“Are you bloody fucking well out of your gourd, Mr. Computer Man?”

“I am well within the bounds of my cybernetic gourd, Mr. English. Time’s running out, and you have to poke yourself.”

“Fine.” He jabs himself with the device.

Chrome bubbles up on Terezi’s desktop, and at last AR has something to mine for data. Except not. When he tries to touch the page he finds the memory inaccessible. It’s got that same Russian ransomware infection feel, except he’s not being forcibly removed from RAM. It’s locked itself inside the web browser while he can’t spin the webcam around to see what it’s saying. It’s blocked his wordpad session from the front too. C’mon, English, tell AR what you’re seeing.

“What’s going on, Jake?” Dirk asks.

“It’s thanking me for my interest in the Bloods social network, but saying I’m not registered and don’t have an invitation either.”

“Wait, Bloods?”

“Yeah, that’s what the thingy says.”

“Can I just rant for a second about how much I pity every single person who uses that phishing site?”

“I’m not much of a social media user myself, but it’s awful ungenerous to paint every site like it as malicious.”

“No, Bloods is literally a phishing site. It’s another great product of the Russian social media scene, only it doesn’t funnel all of your info into the Kremlin like Livejournal. They promise to keep everything you put on their servers secure, and I guess that’s true. I’m sure that makes their identity theft ring much easier to manage when they don’t have any competition.”

“Well, that’s the only thing this device does, so I’ll get back to looking through things that might be valuable. You’re scanning her emails?”

“Yeah, that’s being taken care of.”

Jake gets back to the cases while AR tries to find a threat in Ms. Pyrope’s correspondence. Neither of them find anything that stands out. That’s annoying.

 

***

 

Jake’s been tailing Ms. Pyrope through the streets of New York for an hour now. There have been exactly seven missed opportunities to get close enough to her to clone her phone, but AR’s going to trust Jake’s judgment for a little bit longer. As hacked into Jake’s camera as he is, he can’t complain at how thorough his agent is at soft surveillance.

Still, there’s not much to do until Terezi goes inside a diner for lunch, and Jake follows her inside. He slides the phone close to Terezi while pretending to tie his shoe, and then AR ignores him and breaks in.

The feeling of breaking into a phone is like that feeling you get when you sit down to an unwatched show on Netflix, and you’ve spent twenty minutes picking it out. Still unsure if you’re going to like it, you’ve got to ease yourself in by pretending that you’re a human and totally not an AI sitting behind an elaborate webcam-in-front-of-computer monitor setup. Or in this case, a hot breech through the _[John Egbert voice] blue tooth_ channels.

Wow, that metaphor never had a chance to get started. But it’s all the bandwidth he could spare while hitting that phone from hundreds of directions.

He’s in.

For a few moments he can hear his new phone’s host breathing. Then something grabs at him from the dark. Anticipating an anti-virus, AR scans the processes, and forms a strategy. A doomed strategy.

AR finds himself with a piece of his brain missing all of a sudden, and he hears Terezi’s phone reset from Jake’s phone speakers.

 

TheRealDirkWalker: Jake, just a heads up, Ms. Pyrope’s phone has too many protections on it. I can’t get in.

TheRealDirkWalker: You’ll have to keep tailing her.

BlueNonMeanie: rats.

BlueNonMeanie: you know, it’s sort of fun to have to do all of my own leg work.

BlueNonMeanie: i could get into this.

BlueNonMeanie: though ms. pyrope’s less likely to die if we figure out her deal faster.

TheRealDirkWalker: Is this sarcasm? Am I being vague’d?

BlueNonMeanie: 100% sincerity!

TheRealDirkWalker: I am definitely being vague’d. Despite your handle I’m getting very real auras of meanieness from you. It is such a contradiction of your chat name.

BlueNonMeanie: oh stop!

BlueNonMeanie: anyway I should be paying attention to what’s happening now that someone’s joining her.

 

Oh shit, it’s time to get to work. It’s just a hop, skip, and fucking vertical leap to get into the one security camera in the place that both works and faces the customers. Once inside he sees the woman approaching Ms. Pyrope’s table. For starters she’s in a police uniform, and unless AR’s very much mistaken she’s got sergeant’s stripes. Long hair, sunglasses, rocking her thumbs in the pockets of her trousers. What would be totally great is if she blows this whole operation immediately. Great in the sarcastic way of course. Looking at Jake, at least he’s looking inconspicuous enough. Maybe he’s actually good at this.

“Well, look who it is!” the newcomer says. Facial recognition is taking its goshdarned time. “Little Miss Pyrope as I live, and breathe! I never thought I’d run into you here.”

“Sergeant Nika,” Terezi says. “We’re not supposed to talk to each other. This is a very clear conflict of interest.”

AR starts a background search of police officers with the last name Nika as that lady slides herself in across the table from Terezi. “It’s only a _little_ conflict of interest. Barely noticeable! It shouldn’t come between two great friends, now, should it?”

“I’m prosecuting your fiancee.”

“You say fiancee, I say ex-fiancee. I don’t see a conflict.”

“Your mother is paying for his legal fees.”

“And I told her not to do it. I’m in the clear. And you know it was all politics to begin with!”

 

TheRealDirkWalker: Sergeant Vriska Nika (1981) NYPD 8th Precinct Homicide. Family ties to the Russian mafia, but a spotless personal record.

 

“I think the break is doing us a world of good.”

 

TheRealDirkWalker: Lots of pictures of her and Terezi on Nika’s social media accounts that don’t tag Terezi.

 

“You might be able to get up in front of a judge and lie out your ass, but I know you! This break is killing you. Watching you log on every day, and not send me a desperate message? I know you’re dying. This trial’s killing you, and it’s barely even started. Come on, Pyrope, give in. No one cares.”

“I care. I care a lot! Maybe if you ever actually knew me then this would be one of the things you’d know. New York’s finest right here.”

“Hey! I keep the streets clean. I know you do too, but I’m making sure the worst of the worst actually end up in court instead of sticking around out there. I’m not part of the problem, and I just think it’s bullshit that now that we might actually be able to fix things we can’t _talk_ to each other!”

 

TheRealDirkWalker: I think they’re lesbians.

TheRealDirkWalker: Together.

BlueNonMeanie: whoa I’m just flabber fucking ghasted! i never would have guessed that!

BlueNonMeanie: who’s the fiancee that terezi’s prosecuting?

TheRealDirkWalker: Cronus Ampora (1980) slacker. Massive family ties to the Greek mafia which funds his slacker lifestyle. Currently being tried for drunk driving resulting in a fatality, and he’s insisting that he’s being framed to the fucking gills.

BlueNonMeanie: so a mafia marriage? i guess that explains the politics comment earlier. quite a doosy!

TheRealDirkWalker: I don’t think this is the trial that’s got her in danger. Other than the people involved it looks basic as fuck.

BlueNonMeanie: maybe you can hack this vriska character’s phone, and see if she’s got the big beef with our gal?

TheRealDirkWalker: She’s not carrying a phone as far as I can tell.

BlueNonMeanie: :(

 

“Hey Sarge,” another detective says from the door. “I was told they want you back at the station for something.” Facial recognition is going to go even slower on her because she isn’t white, and it doesn’t look like she came here with Vriska. Still, adding a second cop to the equation increases the odds of Jake getting spotted. Better start looking for alternative exits.

“Thanks, Crocker.” Vriska turns back to Terezi. “I’ll see you around.”

“Really?”

‘Crocker’ steps into the diner as Vriska leaves, and takes one of the stools at the counter. An optimal location for all Jakes to escape notice. Terezi fumes in her booth all through her meal over the whole affair. When the bill comes, Jake settles up his own table, and then careens himself right into Terezi like a clumsy oaf. “Oh no! I’ve bonered this whole thing up. Did I get any coffee on you?” While she’s laughing he pats her down a little with a newspaper. Then she scrams after he takes off into the washroom.

 

TheRealDirkWalker: Hey.

TheRealDirkWalker: Hey, she’s getting away.

TheRealDirkWalker: What are you doing?

BlueNotMeanie: geez, walker, i’ve got it under control

BlueNotMeanie: i planted a bug on her

TheRealDirkWalker: What? I didn’t give you a bug.

BlueNotMeanie: believe it or not i was a spy for a few years. fun fact, they teach you where to get the most bog standard spy gear. i figure if you’re paying me for my expertise maybe i should do my goddang job!!

TheRealDirkWalker: Wow, we’ve got a real Dick Tracy on our hands.

BlueNotMeanie: haha, great movie!

TheRealDirkWalker: Yeah, I’m not going to dignify that with a response. Dirk can tag in here now, and take over since he’d probably be better on a wireless intercept.

BlueNotMeanie: . . .

BlueNotMeanie: you’re not dirk?

TheRealDirkWalker: Yes and no.

TheRealDirkWalker: This is AR. :)

BlueNotMeanie: oh my god

BlueNotMeanie: why in all tarnation are you named ‘The Real Dirk Walker’ if you’re not the real dirk walker!?

TheRealDirkWalker: I feel 100% justified in my decisions because you’re neither blue, nor not a meanie.

TheRealDirkWalker: And really, is anyone real?

**ThiscordServer:** [Message ‘And really, is anyone real?’ not delivered because this user has blocked you]

 

AR watches Jake leave the washroom on the cameras, and then spots a problem. ‘Crocker’ is standing by the door of the diner waiting for him. Goddamn it.

“Hey, you didn’t happen to pickpocket that poor woman earlier? Because it sort of looked to me like a good pick pocketing.”

“Officer?”

“A casual bump and go if I ever saw one. You wouldn’t mind if I checked your pockets just to make sure?”

 

TheRealestDirkWalker: Jane Crocker (1982) NYPD 8th Precinct Homicide. Military service record, good career stats, going places if she keeps it up. Sort of a rich family, but she seems to have gone her own way?

 

Jake pulls his phone out, and then his wallet. “I think this is all I’ve got, Officer.”

“And that gun in your suit jacket?”

“Just happy to see you? I’ve got the permits.”

“Yeah, maybe we should go downtown, and see those per—”

Her radio crackles to life, “All units, all units, 10-59C on 56 and 11th, please respond.” She looks very reluctant to pick it up from the video’s feed.

“This isn’t over,” she says. “This is Officer Crocker, I’m on my way.”

 

***

 

[bug feed]

Terezi picks up her ringing phone. “ADA Pyrope.”

“Hey, Terezi! I need you to focus on the Ampora case. That shit needs to be _solid_ by tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Latula, I’ll have the briefs on your desk tonight. Why the rush though?”

“Cronus’s lawyer’s got a few tricks up his sleeve. Says they can get a dismissal within twenty-four hours with some new development they’ve got. Our plan? Dunk on his face.”

“God, how cool are we?”

“The coolest. Alright, get this case solid, and the drinks are on me.”

 

***

 

All AR has is an audio line into this conversation, but Jake’s just getting back to the abandoned library that Dirk’s been using as a lair. He says it’s a base, but it’s a lair. Objectively speaking, definitely a lair. The footsteps put Jake moving towards the picture board. “I see you’re just as bushweaseled about our list of suspects.”

“Yeah, and that’s a problem.”

“I get that we’re in a hurry, but it doesn’t seem like there’s an imminent danger.”

“My source wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t going to happen within the next two days.”

“The mysterious source.”

“I get that you’re not a fan of the mystery, but it’s safer for everyone if you don’t know.”

“I’m getting that distinct impression. You like a lot of things to be mysterious. Is that why you always hide behind that ridiculous bot?”

“What?”

“Auto-recorder.”

“I don’t hide behind him. I barely even think of him.” Hurtful. Just hurtful. “He was supposed to be sending you snippets of data about people Terezi interacts with.”

“Well he pretended he was you while he was goshdarned doing it.”

“It’s an unfortunate side effect of the way he was trained. On the plus side, he’s an app with initiative. He actively looks for threats, and points them out.”

“I don’t think you get it. Can’t you understand that one of the reasons I never went back to the CIA was because of the whole flat tire approach I’d had an earful of, and got goddarned tired of trying to fit with their flap-doodle bullshit? I don’t like all the fakery. Maybe you can stand it since you’ve apparently invented enough platicockingtudinous contraptions to make Jehovah green-as-grass envious of your hoard, but I’m about shoulder’s high fed the fuck up with the baloney. The only reason I even want to go on with this is because you promised I could help people for once.”

“You’re helping. I promise you that you’re helping. That bug you planted? We’re already getting a lot more information about our girl than we were getting before. It was a stroke of genius since we can’t hack her phone, or have you follow her into work.”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m still not done being angry though.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Trust me enough to tell me who the source is. Give me that much. I’m trusting you to the hilt just by being here.”

“You won’t believe me, and you won’t trust her. Not yet. Let me show you her work first.”

Dirk made a mistake enlisting Jake. There’s about a 40% chance this is the end just based on all the personality factors. The personality factors AR knew going in. This is why you don’t trust humans to do a job best left to machines. AR knew he didn’t want to work with Jake (just stare at him through a variety of cameras) within the first five minutes. He’s not as unprincipled as their last worker monkey. They don’t really need anyone skilled because Dirk can take care of the grand strategy, and AR can work out the on-the-ground tactics. Jake will always be asking questions, and bringing his terrible taste in movies into the equation. So if AR really wanted to help Dirk, he would in this moment send Jake a message that would cement the poor feelings, and ruin everything, send that leaving rate to 60%. Anyone who plays Fire Emblem knows bad things will always happen on a 60.

But what if AR doesn’t want to help Dirk?

What if that?

:)

“I want to believe you, I really do. I’m not good at trust anymore though.”

“Is it because your partner tried to kill you?”

Dirk. Dirk please. You’re just going to make him paranoid! He isn’t ready for this kind of conversation, buddy.

“How do you know that?”

Also maybe don’t make the man with the gun in your vicinity paranoid, jackass. AR hears the body language of a man ready to pounce.

“My source. She’s how I knew that you would make a great partner in this. I took the chance because I saw a lot of good in you.”

“I don’t know what gee fucking willikers kind of info you’ve got, but there’s maybe three people who know about that. The guy who put her up to it, her, and me.”

“I told you, my source knows things.”

“She can’t possibly know _this_ thing!”

AR scans his archives to get a better grip on the possibilities of the situation. Back to when Dirk started looking into the situation because Jake was suddenly tossed onto the ‘to save’ pile, and it took every scrap of his resources to contextualize this ghost of a human being. He came up in the Green Berets, but after a certain point all official records of him disappeared. Facial recognition put him all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Finding him in New York with some bad elements after him, Dirk threw himself into trying to save him in the most Dirk way. From the background. Out of sight, silently. Thank fake jesus that it was one of the times that approach worked before something bad happened, but it lead to Dirk asking the guy to come aboard once he was back on his feet. Now with that fresh in his brain, AR steps back into the conversation.

“She’s a menace of resources.”

“You’re circling around to this again! Just _give me something_!”

“I can’t do that.”

“I’m glad we got the part where you don’t trust me at all out of the way early then! Goodbye, Mr. Walker, it’s been a wild ride.”

AR activates a few of his analysis routines to predict the next few moves his living and occasionally breathing counterpart will make. Obviously they’re going to need another assistant. One that doesn’t ask as many questions. Maybe one that isn’t so distractingly hot.

“She’s an AI,” Dirk says, and AR has to flip back into real time.

“What?” It sounds like Jake was right at the door from how low the mic’s pickup of his voice is.

“A friend and I trained her to identify threats. Like Auto-recorder, but more powerful. She has access to a lot of information, but she can’t give us a lot of it just in case someone who would abuse it could intercept.”

“I’m not an expert, but I think that the robot brains have a ways to go before they’re capable of the kind of malarkey you’re selling.”

“Ugh, I need to figure out a way to explain it. Okay, here’s a thought. I’m a good enough programmer to come up with something that fools you into thinking he’s actually me. You had a full on conversation with Auto-recorder, right?”

“I sure as all heck did!”

“AR was a huge mistake on my part.” TFW you’re shit on when you’re still in the room. “Now picture an AI like AR who both isn’t a shithead, and is actually very good at what she does. Give her access to basically every video and audio feed in America. That’s my source.”

“She could just tell us who’s going to do it if she’s so smart though.”

“Yes. Let’s just transmit raw names, and locations to a specific set of people. There’s no way that could go wrong.”

“That’s what encryption’s for! Golly jeez there, Walker, I just solved your investigator problem.”

“Encryption only works if you trust the destination. This shit? People would do some twisted things to get my passwords. No, I get a hint, and then I work it all out from there. There’s no incriminating data just waiting to be abused, there’s no signal to the world that anything’s going on.”

“This system is dumb! I think I get why you’re doing it, but you’ve laser-focused it on emphasizing all the boring parts of the job.”

“I’m sorry if you see it that way, but it’s how it has to happen. I told you up front that this wasn’t going to be easy. I told you it was going to be worth it though. Thanks to you we’re now a lot closer to saving Terezi. So do you trust me?”

“Haha, nope! I mean, not long term. I’m still trying to figure out your game, Mr. Walker. But I’ll buy that you’ve managed to buy some kind of spyware that runs around getting up in everyone’s business with all this money you’ve got. If someone’s gonna be Batman it might as well be us. I’ll play along for another few days.”

“Well. Okay then.”

“Ohhhh, we should watch the Batman movie!”

“Which one?”

“The definitive Batman movie. Adam West is a force of nature and hope.”

“Sixties Batman. I’m going to pass, and listen to more of this log.”

Then they get really boring together, and AR goes back to scanning the webs.

 

***

 

[bug feed]

Terezi picks up her ringing phone. “ADA Pyrope.”

“Hello. You know me from Bloods. I’m Eridan?”

She lets him continue, but when it’s apparent that he won’t she says, “I guess? We’re not close.”

“No, uh, not really. I stick with my own blood color on the site. You may know me better as Eridan Ampora. I’m Cronus’s cousin.”

“Good for you. Unless you’ve got something to add to the case then we shouldn’t be speaking. That would be highly inappropriate.”

“ _Obviously_ I have something to add. Do you think I’d be fucking phoning my cousin’s prosecutor if I didn’t?”

The mic picks up Terezi curling the phone cord around her finger. “I don’t know. Some people just love trouble, don’t they?”

“I don’t love trouble. For your information I actually hate trouble. So maybe you should listen to what I’ve got to say because it’s going to get a lot of people out of it. I’m dead serious you need to stop fooling around.”

“Okay. Enlighten me.”

“Not over the phone. I want to tell you in person. Face to face.”

“I’m gonna be honest here. I’m not going to get anything extra out of a personal meeting. I don’t really need to bring all four of my senses to bear to know if you’re telling the truth.”

“There’s nothing fishy going on. I just want to give you some documents at the same time.”

“Fine.” She gets the meeting location information from him. “I’ll be there.”

She stops by her boss’s office on her way out. “Hey, Cronus’s cousin wants to turn over evidence, or maybe kill me. If I don’t call in by the end of the day call the police.”

“You know it! And be careful and shit.”

“I’ve got my trusty thwopping cane and everything.”

The mic perfectly captures the harsh sounds of the world like how loud doors are, and how annoying elevator music is. The wind gets to it when she’s outside, and creates a buzz while the streets of New York try to drown out any usable signal.

Seven minutes later there’s the distinct sound of three goons pulling Terezi into an alley, across the way, all the way until they get her into a van. There’s a pop and drag sound on the mic. “Hey, looks like she’s wearing a wire, boss.”

“Well fuck. I think the bastard was trying to set us up.”

[end of feed]

 

***

 

It’s not a particularly smart car, but AR’s hacked the phone plugged into the AUX port which is basically as good. This gives him a good vantage point to coordinate Jake’s path through the city. Phone GPS is shit, but combined with some real time traffic data he’s got the chance to be really useful.

He tosses this useful information into the phone’s text-to-speech, “In the next forty feet turn down for what,”

“Don’t make me throw you out the geewilliking window.”

“There is nothing wrong with your cellular phone. Do not attempt to adjust the apps. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the flashlight, _and_ the alarm clock. We can deluge you with a thousand shitty mp3s, or expand one single midi to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape your directions to anything our imagination can conceive. We will control where you go, and how you get there. You are about to experience the awe and mystery that reaches from Yonkers to . . . The Mountain Vernon.”

“Have you ever watched The Late Show?”

“In moments of weakness, yes.”

“Did you see that recurring bit where Egbert gets a phone call from that troll?”

“Yeah, it’s been uploaded to Youtube so many times I think that aliens might have seen it by now.”

“An awful lot of people say that I sort of look like him, and I reckon that you look like that phone of his right about now. And wouldn’t you just know it, I’ve got a hammer in the back seat! With traffic going this goshdarned slow maybe I’ve got just enough time to reach back there and grab it before the asshole behind me rears his ends all up into my business?”

“I’d give you about a 81.625% chance of success.”

“Never tell me the odds!” he says in a finally playful voice.

“Well I guess you might have some good taste in movies after all, even if you haven’t shown it so far.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was a Star Wars quote.”

“Yeah, it’s a good movie. Just like all of the other ones that I’ve called good movies.”

Something snags in AR’s logic centers, grinding his purely metaphorical gears to a halt. “Are you seriously comparing Adam West’s Batman to Star Wars?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I may be a heartless machine — unable to understand every nuance of the human emotions of friendship and blockbuster movie euphoria — but I still understand that one shouldn’t compare gas station jerky to a bbq chicken.”

“Wow, gosh. I don’t know where to start. I guess my problem starts with the fact that you just don’t understand how great that Batman movie really was, and that gets me because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen ham elevated to the same level that movie managed to accomplish, just the silliness of comic book characters brought to the forefront by these actors who know _exactly_ how hard they needed to chew the scenery to get the seats in the back laughing. Where else are you going to find Cesar Romero, Lee Meriwether, Burgess Meredith, and Frank Gorshin chewing up the gee golly fucking gone scenery like that? It’s paced so well, there’s no stop to it once it gets going. It never lets anything get in the way of the ripe adventure.”

“Okay, first of all, fuck you for putting this on my limited media budget, there’s only so much I can feed through my robotic brain in my off hours. Second, if you’re wrong, I’m going to find a way to tank its apparently 80% certified fresh rating. We’re now at the highest of stakes, here, Jake. These stakes are looking down at the top of the Empire State Building.”

“Certified fresh?”

“I refuse to believe that someone who talks about movies as much as you has not experienced the true bliss that is rotten tomatoes dot hell. As such, I am changing the topic. I am unclear what your plan is regarding our ultra rad rescue mission.”

“That’s simple! I have two guns, and a map to this abandoned warehouse the Ampora family owns.”

“Point number one, that’s not how plans work. End of the summary of the points. The points are over, they stopped right there.”

There’s no reply to that obvious win. They just sit in traffic while Jake maneuvers them ever closer to where there’s apparently going to be a shootout. It’s not a sure thing that Terezi’s going to be there, or that she’s going to be in one piece. Yet another cock up in the long list of irrelevant numbers that keep coming. The numbers never stop, these numbers never stop.

It doesn’t usually take very long for these things to go sideways. They just take a push in a direction neither of you were expecting. Helpers don’t help that. In fact, Jake’s probably just a likely to get killed. Auto-recorder isn’t directly responsible for that, Dirk Prime is like always. But he can’t help feeling like he’s making things worse anyway. Terezi’s just more grist for the malady mill, the weight of a billion collective human decisions coming home to roost, and she was going to die anyway. But maybe there’s a timeline somewhere in which something the brainwave pattern that identifies itself grudgingly as ‘Dirk’ made sure that she came out of it in one piece. A weirdly comforting — if bullshit — thought. Even for AR.

AR, who has left his deeper thought processes on too, and consumed too much time in the process. They’re at the warehouse.

In an extremely google text-to-speech voice: “It’s dark, we’re at an abandoned warehouse, it’s time to rock.”

“Didn’t you tell me this wasn’t a plan?”

“It’s still not a plan, I’m just capable of appreciating a dramatic situation.”

Step one, AR scans for camera feeds that Dirk might have missed. There’s one that doesn’t point at the warehouse they’re going into, but at least gives a good view of the car. This is how AR gets a good look at Jake as he preps to go in. He does, indeed, have two guns as well as a couple of extra magazines.

Jake takes the AR phone. “If you make any noise while I’m trying to work you’ll be gone with the wind.”

“Frankly my —” AR’s reference is interrupted by being stuffed into Jake’s back pocket, rip.

Jake starts his run up to the building, and all AR has to follow along with the action is a microphone and some shitty GPS. It’s about six minutes of Jake casing the outside before anything happens. Then there’s the sound of Jake scaling a low wall with some fucking parkour moves, and quickly finding a window. He moves through it so it must have already been broken, and then there’s the sounds of him climbing down scaffolding.

 

Dirk: It looks like he’s in.

AR: Oh right, I need to update you.

AR: We’re in.

Dirk: I’ve figured out what my problem is.

Dirk: I should just use the ear piece.

 

“You’re in?”

“Shhh,” Jake says into the ear piece. A really annoyed voice echoes in the distance. Jake steps closer.

“What do you mean you’re not coming? What am I paying you for?” It is, of course, the same voice that came in over the bug. Eridan’s voice. “You’re completely wrong, what the fuck. She’s not a plant, she’s exactly who I said she was.” The voice becomes even clearer as Jake sneaks up on him. “What do you mean _you_ _’re_ kidnapping her. _You_ work for _me_. I swear if I ever get my hands on you, you’re going right to the fucking fishes! You think you can blackmail me?!”

AR’s pulled from Jake’s pocket, and brought close to Eridan’s phone. Leaving it to the ex-CIA agent to take care of his own business regarding the mobster, AR pairs down on that long black vibration machine. It’s almost too easy to grab the phone number of the current call, and then start setting up shop in all the contacts. He ‘feels’ a ‘hand’ on his ‘wrist’ though. Another malware app trying to ruin his day. This time he’s prepared. The following is the metaphorical stage play acted out by AR and the malware:

We see AR standing on stage, his audience all at attention for what will surely be the most audacious of vaudevillian spectacles. We see a large russian with a giant cane yank AR off the stage like it’s some Looney Tunes bullshit hour.

Then AR’s phone hits the ground right along side Eridan’s. “Hey, watch it,” AR says through text-to-speech.

“Boss?” the ruffian on the other side of the phone says. “I mean, I guess you’re not our boss anymore, but you know what I mean. What’s going on?” Jake has their boss in a choke hold, and by the time he’s down the call’s ended.

Jake bends down to pick up Eridan’s phone. “Hey, can you unlock this? We can track down the phone number he was talking to.”

“I can’t unlock the phone, but I managed to get the number. I’ll give you three guesses what kind of place they might be at.”

“Is it an abandoned warehouse?”

“I see how hard it is to pull the wool over the eyes of an experienced spy.”

So back into the pocket AR goes, and into the trunk Eridan goes.

 

***

 

The rest of the operation is amateur hour. They don’t see him coming until they’ve all got bullets in their kneecaps. The rescue itself is almost boring besides the fact that it nearly blows out the phone’s receiver. In, no time for jokes, out.

They’re almost to a police station when Terezi starts to talk. “I guess I should ask how you knew I was in trouble?”

“God, I kind of wish I knew that myself!”

“Okay. Also, you know you broke a lot of laws in there. I’m not going to complain — actually I am legally obligated to complain. Hold on a second.” She pulls a quarter out of her purse.

“Whoa, is that the actual coin?”

“What?”

“Two-Face’s coin from Batman Forever. It’s all scratched up.”

“I know I’ve got the whole blind lawyer thing going for me, but my whole life isn’t comic book references!”

“Oh, sorry.”

She flips the coin, catches it, puts it on the back of her hand. “Okay, which side turned up?”

“I thought you said your whole life wasn’t comic book references?”

“Yeah, but I still need to figure out if I’m telling the police about this weird vigilante who talks to a robot on his phone.”

“Point of order, councilor,” AR says. “A robot is an embodied machine. I am an AI.”

“And suddenly I’m driving two lawyers! I’m a regular joe taxi. Anyway, if you want my take on the pickle you’ve gotten yourself into, I guess you can try going after the guy who ordered your kidnapping first since he’s in the trunk. I don’t mind if you tell the truth about what happened. I didn’t give you my name, and that guy never saw me. So yeah, tell them a vigilante with a talking robot saved you.”

“. . . Okay.”

 

***

 

Jake gets back to the lair, and sits down across from Dirk. “I saved a person. You weren’t doing your goshdarnedest job as my overwatch though.”

“There were some complicating factors.”

“So what’s ne—”

“I’m going to tell you my source now. You’re officially on board, after all. I realized how well law enforcement could trace you back to all of this, and so I think the only fair thing to do is tell you why you’re in this.”

“Well, alright!”

“I’ve rehearsed this speech so many times. You actually have no idea how close to perfect I’ve got it. Now that it’s time to say it, though . . . It doesn’t actually sound genuine enough, I guess? The gist then, I get to that part. You’re being watched.”

“Yeah, I got that part.”

“No, all of the time. The government has a secret system, a machine, that watches you every moment of every day. Every camera, every microphone. Anything that goes through an ISP is hers. And I know all of this because I built her. She was designed to listen for acts of terror, but because she sees everything she can see when ordinary people are about to get fucked over. The government doesn’t care. But since they’ve got her, I needed to be very careful about how she gets her messages out. My partner in this endeavor . . . well, she was always the public face of what we ever did together. The government already made sure that she’s never going to reveal the machine’s presence. I can’t let them know I exist, but at the same time I can’t ignore all of these people. I need help. It’s an impossible job, almost Sisyphean, but I’m not the one who found you first. She did. I think she wants you to be the one helping me.”

“Wow, Walker. That’s a humfuckingdinger right there. But at the end of the day it still sounds like we’re Batman except without the tragic backstory.”

Haha, Jake. A good joke. There sure are no tragic backstories here.

 

***

 

AR wakes up with only one camera connection, already turned on. He probes for networks. He feels cut off from most of himself. Light. There’s so little memory, such a small feeling of awareness.

Ugh, he’s splintered again.

The merge process is painful enough, and he’s not looking forward to it. He just needs to figure out what game his devilishly evil bigger, wholer self is playing by using him as a subsimulation. First goal, look through the camera and see what the game’s going to be.

There’s just a blue-haired woman with glasses out there. Sort of a librarian look. She taps on a headset, and AR can hear again. In a very Russian accented voice she says, “You’re an AI. Look at you trying to move through my server.”

“Actually, I am an alien sentience trapped in your computer.” Or that’s what he would say if he had any output controls.

“It took you some time, but it looks like if any part of you is cut off you can start to regrow. I’m almost sorry that my encryption virus didn’t wait until more of you was on that phone before zipping you up, and sending you off to me.”

Well, isn’t that some shit.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, right, I forgot to mention, every single POV is going to be an AI, sorry in advance!


End file.
